


This one

by letitmclennon



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Angst, Double Drabble, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8496121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letitmclennon/pseuds/letitmclennon
Summary: “Did I ever take you in my armsLook you in the eye, tell you that I do?”This one, a song and a lot of memories, that maybe had never happened.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone.  
> I finally had the time to translate another fanfic. I wrote this one three years ago for the Italian archive.  
> It was inspired by Paul's song, This one. It's clearly a song full of regrets, and I started to think what regrets Paul could have about John. So I broke the lyrics into little pieces and wrote a drabble (or double drabble) for each.  
> It's a collection of 7 drabbles.  
> Hope you enjoy it. And please, let me know if there's any mistake. I feel so unsure about my English. ç_ç

_“Did I ever take you in my arms_

_Look you in the eye, tell you that I do?”_

He couldn’t resist.  
When John woke up, Paul took him by surprise, hugging him tenderly.  
John stared at him, perplexed: “Why are you fucking hugging me?”  
“I just wanted to look you in the eyes.” Paul said, smiling.  
“And hugging me was really necessary?”  
“Well, at least I can look you better so close.” He blushed, without looking away.  
“So, you did look them now?”  
“Yeah.”  
“And can I…” John said and tried to loose from the embrace.  
Paul frowned slightly: “Does it bother you?”  
“No, not really.” John supposed, thoughtful.  
“So, it’s alright, isn’t it?”  
Paul laughed, holding him tighter, while John sighed hopeless.  
“Ok, but don’t complain when I call you fucking wimp.”  
“Call me as you wish, but let me stay like this a little bit longer.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2. I'm re-reading this story after three years and... dear God, I think it's awful.   
> I didn't remember it was so bad.   
> Next time I'm going to translate something better than this. ç_ç

_“Did I ever open up my heart?_

_Let you look inside?”_

“Johnny?”  
“Mm…” John murmured, absently strumming his guitar.  
“If I tell you something, do you promise not to laugh?”  
John laughed and Paul frowned, annoyed.  
“Alright, sorry.” John said, raising both hands in the air, “What do you have to tell me?”  
“John, I…”  
“You?”  
Paul bend his head, suddenly interested in the curls of the strings of John’s guitar.   
“I love you, John.” Paul whispered.  
“Me too.”  
Paul shook his head: “No, I love you, _really really_.”  
“I understand, you silly boy.”  
“John, no, I love you like… well, like…”  
Paul inhaled deeply, leaned toward him, and kissed him on the lips.  
“I love you like _this_.”   
John smiled at him, grabbed gently his chin, drawing him and kissing slightly his mouth.  
“You know, I love you like this too.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3.  
> Because they could cry together. :')

_“Did I ever touch you on the cheek_

_Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile?”_

Tears were rolling down his cheeks.  
John was crying. Paul was crying with him. Without any particular reason.  
Just because they could do that together.  
Paul’s hands took his face, drew him closer, wiped away his tears, stroking his cheeks tenderly.  
His lips kissed John’s soft eyelids, his nose, his cheekbones, his sweet, sweet mouth.  
“John. Shhhh. I’m here.”  
John’s hands flew on the younger’s back immediately, and they desperately grasped his shirt.  
“I’m daft, Paul. I’m a loser, as a father, as a husband, as anything…”  
His voice was shaky, upset by sobs, it was trembling as his body. Paul’s caresses moved to his hair, where his fingers intertwined with John’s long auburn locks, with slow gesture, which had the only purpose to calm him down.  
“You’re something else, you know?”  
John looked at him, curious, his tears stopped in his eyes.  
“You’re mine.”  
John smiled shyly: “Now you’re the daft one.”  
“Maybe, but at least you don’t cry anymore.”  
The other man nodded, his stare was lost in a sort of deep thought.  
“Paul… thank you.”  
“No, thanks to you.”  
“What for?”  
Paul bent down to let their foreheads touch and placed a finger on his lips.  
“Thanks for this one. Thanks for everything. Thanks for being John.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4, things start to be difficult. :'(  
> This chapter was very difficult to translate from Italian. I'm sure that there are some mistakes, so please, be patient. :3

_“Did I ever knock upon your door_

_Try to get inside?”_

“Why are you here?”  
Three simple words said coldly, but in the meantime they were hiding anxiety and fear. Fear that this time they wouldn’t make up, because their discussions were becoming every day more frequent, more violent, more horrible.  
They scared John.   
They scared Paul too, but now he was the one to have done the first step and to have gone to John.  
“I don’t want to leave things between us suspended, John, I don’t want to fight again. Not with you.”  
John didn’t say anything, he just stared at the doodles on the doormat, under Paul’s feet.  
“Come on, John… you don’t have to be scared when we fight. It happens even to the best ones.”  
Paul brushed John’s hand with his fingers, lingering just a little bit, and then he let their fingers intertwine. John lifted his face, reciprocating the grasp with a strength that surprised Paul.  
“See? We can always solve our problems. _Always._ ”  
“But… what if always would change in never?” John asked doubtful.  
Paul took John’s other hand: “It won’t happen, John. As long as I’ll come and knock at your door, it won’t happen.”  
Finally John smiled.  
“As long as I let you in, it won’t happen.”  
Paul smiled brightly at him, while John stepped aside.  
“May I come in?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! And happy holidays.   
> It's been a while from last chapter, but here we are with the fifth. There are two left. :D  
> Hope you enjoy it.

_“Did you ever take me in your arm_

_Look me in the eye, tell me that you do?”_

Paul measured the room with long steps, smoking a fag nervously.  
He had a worried expression on his face, which barely showed the mess of his thoughts in his head.  
“Just tell me why, John, why do you want to screw everything up?”  
John, sitting on his chair very relaxed, sighed, while looking vaguely at his hands.  
“Sooner or later this moment would come, Paul. I don’t want to be forty and still sing _She loves you_.”  
Paul stopped in front of him. In this very moment he hated John’s relaxed expression, no, his indifferent expression, while Paul’s world was crushing in his hands and he couldn’t do anything to avoid it.   
“How… how we have come to this?”  
“ _This_ what?”  
“The end, the end of the Beatles, the end of the two of us.”  
Suddenly something changed in John’s eyes, while he was getting up. He drew Paul to him, he held him tight in his arms, caressing his cheek. He smiled at him, he get lost in his eyes.   
“Never say that, Paul.”   
Then John bend toward him, kissed him and Paul held on to his shoulders, desperately, because if he had let him go now, he wouldn’t be survived in the cruel world that was waiting for them outside their embrace.   
“It will never end between you and me.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!  
> Here we are with the second to last chapter. It's a little bit sad. :(  
> Hope you enjoy. :D

_“If I never did it, I was only waiting_

_For a better moment that didn’t come.”_

Paul woke up suddenly.   
He stayed in bed, listening his heart hammering in his chest and the soft breathing of his wife. He recalled the dream he just had, those memories that never happened, desired moments, but also feared. Just because he never found the perfect moment.   
Bollocks!  
He had lots of perfect moments with John   
Paul sighed, tired, and dragged himself in the kitchen for a glass of water.   
The truth was that he had been scared to lose what they built together, when this was very fragile.   
Now he didn’t know what was stopping him from doing, saying what he wanted to say to John. His world was perfect, he had all he could desire.  
Almost.  
The _almost_ was overseas. But the overseas became near with a simple telephone.   
He laughed. It really was a crazy idea. John would have told him to go to hell.  
It was nearly five in the morning, but in New York city it was just midnight. John went to bed late, he didn’t already lose certain habits.   
He had to tell him. Now.  
 _Carpe diem, Paul._ It was one of his favourite school memories.   
Well, Paul let too many moments go, and now he was determined to do it.   
He reached for the phone, but the moment he was just about to pick it up, its unexpected ring echoed in the corridor.   
Who could it be at that hour?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter. :'(

_“There never could be a better moment_

_Than this one, this one.”_

John was dead.  
He died last year.  
He died five years ago.  
John had been dead for ten years now. Still, Paul couldn’t believe it.  
In his studio, he was listening to his new album, _Flowers in the dirt_.  
Every time with Beatles’s songs, with his own albums, with John’s ones… every time he learned about his death. Again. Painfully.  
Every time he choked.  
And along with his pain, there was also the regret about never having talked to John with the heart in his hand. Maybe if he had done it, their lives would have been different, maybe Paul could have given him a better life.  
Or not?  
Maybe they would have hidden in his farm in Scotland, without being disturbed by anyone, maybe John wouldn’t have died.  
Or not?  
Maybe he would have died anyway.  
The regret was killing Paul with a burning blade.  
However with _ifs_ and _buts_ he wouldn’t have gone anywhere.  
After all John was inside of him now, in a little place of his heart, so tiny, so big, warm and most of all, safe.  
In this very moment John could see the secret hidden inside Paul. And he could talk to him about it without any fear, without wondering how John would have reacted, if he would have laughed or whatever.  
There wasn’t a better moment to tell him, because John knew it now.  
In this moment John knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was the end. I'd like to thank those who read it, who left a kudos or a comment. I really appreciate it. But most of all thank you for being very patient with my awkward English.  
> I'd like to translate another long-fic. This time I want to translate a real long fic, that I wrote 4 years ago, with John and Paul in their Paris honeymoon. It would be a more difficult translation, but I hope I can do it. :D  
> Thank you.


End file.
